Didi orders probe into clashes Basirhat tells us battle for Bengal will be bloody
COMMUNAL VIOLENCE Mamata blames Centre for ‘failing’ to seal Bangladesh border, which she said allowed miscreants to cross over from neighbouring nation
As violence-torn Basirhat inches towards normalcy, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday ordered a judicial inquiry to look into the source of instigation that led to the communal violence in the town a week ago.
“Two national TV channels showed clips of a riot that took place in Comilla in Bangladesh and a clip from a Bhojpuri film to pass them off as (incidents emerging from the) communal violence in Basirhat,” the chief minister said while addressing the media in Kolkata, where state BJP leaders hit the streets in protest after a team of three party MPs was stopped by the police from visiting the riot-hit areas.
“With so many people posting instigating messages and doctored photos and videos during these days, Facebook has turned into a fakebook. Also, the Centre failed to seal the Bangladesh border. We have information that miscreants had crossed over from across the border,” CM said.
The town in North 24 Parganas district, after being in the news for about a week, began showing signs of normal routine returning from Saturday, largely due to the initiatives taken by local leaders from the Muslim and Hindu communities who came together to restore peace.
Acting upon instructions from the CM, senior police officials supervised the peace process, which began on Friday afternoon after a meeting called by inspector general of police Ajay Ranade. It was attended by leaders from both communities, with Haji Bhutto and Bapi Sen entrusted with the task of leading the joint mission.
“It was decided at the meeting that two surveillance teams consisting of Muslim and Hindu youths will be formed. They will guard the Kali temple and the mosque near Trimohini road intersection in Basirhat town. These two places of worship can be targeted if anyone plans fresh trouble,” Bhutto told HT.
Sen, who represents the Kali temple committee, said the team will work in coordination with the police so that no outsider belonging to either of the communities can enter Basirhat and cause trouble.
Babu Gazi, a local Congress councillor, told HT that since the violence has affected life and livelihood of both Muslims and Hindus, it was absolutely necessary to take a step that could send a strong message to the rioters.
“Had the district administration taken some initiative in time, the violence would not have spread to so many areas in the district. But what’s done is done. We have to start with a clean slate,” Gazi said.
State officials said they plan to ask former Calcutta HC judge Saumitra Pal to head the panel that will probe the reasons that led to the flare-up on July 2. witnessing over the past few days is therefore not without context. Assembly elections in the state are still a few years away, but Bengal undoubtedly is one frontier that the BJP hopes to breach to expand its footprint in parts of the country it was mostly non-existent.
Parliamentary elections scheduled for 2019 provide the party with a perfect opportunity to prove its growing prowess and polarisation of voters on religious lines can certainly help its cause.
The political battle lines are, therefore, drawn in West Bengal and Basirhat is simply a collateral damage, though not entirely unintended. Religious fault lines have run deep in the state with 27% Muslim population. It has grown deeper since Mamata Banerjee took over as the chief minister. The Muslims are her impregnable vote bank and she has allowed the perception to grow that she cares for them. Her initiatives to give stipends to Imams and promote madarsas among other things have helped her political capital grow.
It has, however, left sections of Hindus to nurse a feeling of victimhood, leaving the chief minister somewhat vulnerable. Political rivals see in the situation a chance to vitiate the mood further and win over voters to their side. Lost in the slugfest is who started it all.
Since October 2016, West Bengal has witnessed 11 communal flare-ups with Basirhat being the latest but almost certainly not the last. The political contest is heating up and so is the fight between religious hotheads with an eye on votes. The battle for Bengal will be bloody.